Blooms of Darkness

6

Mariana goes out and leaves Hugo by himself. The room isn’t like a room where a person lives. The pink slipcovers, the fragrance of perfume, give it the look of a beauty parlor. Not far from their house was a beauty parlor. There, too, the furniture was pink. In the corners they shampooed the hair of full-figured women and did their finger-and toenails. Everything was done there with a lazy ease, with laughter and open enjoyment. Hugo liked to stand and look at the scene, but his mother’s feet never crossed the threshold of the beauty parlor. Every time they went by it, her lips would curl into a smile whose meaning he couldn’t fathom.

For a long time Hugo stands still, wondering about the nature of this roomy place. Finally he sums it up for himself: it’s not a beauty parlor. There isn’t a broad bed in the middle of a beauty parlor.

Meanwhile, Mariana comes back with a tray of little sandwiches and says, “This is for you. Sit in the armchair and eat as much as you want.”

Hugo remembers that at weddings the waitresses would serve sandwiches like that. At home the sandwiches were simple and served without a paper wrapping. “These are sandwiches for a wedding, isn’t that right?” The sentence slips out of his mouth.

“We eat that kind of sandwich here. Are they tasty?”

“Very.”

“Where were you recently?”

“In the basement of our house.”

“If they ask you, don’t say that you were in the basement.”

“What should I say?”

“Say that you’re Mariana’s son.”

Hugo doesn’t know what to say and hangs his head.

Hugo senses that he is now standing at the threshold of a new period in his life, a period full of secrets and dangers, and he has to be cautious and strong, as he promised his mother.

Mariana keeps staring at him. Hugo feels uncomfortable, and to evade her gaze, he asks, “Is this a big house?”

“Very big,” she says, and laughs. “But you’ll only be in my room and in the closet.”

“Am I allowed to go out into the yard?”

“No. Children like you have to be inside.”

He has already noticed: Mariana speaks in short sentences and, unlike his mother, she doesn’t explain.

After he finishes eating the sandwiches, she says, “Now I’m going to tidy up the room and take a bath. You’ll go back into the closet.”

“Am I allowed to play chess with myself?”

“Certainly, as much as you please.”

Hugo goes back to his place, and Mariana closes the closet door.

Three weeks earlier, when the Actions became fiercer, his mother started talking about great changes that were about to take place in his life, about new people that he would meet, and about an unknown environment. She didn’t speak in her usual, simple language, but in words with many meanings, words that bore a secret. Hugo didn’t ask. He was bewildered, and the more she explained and warned, the more bewildered he became.

Now the secret bears the face of Mariana.

Hugo had met Mariana several times in the past, mostly in dark alleys. His mother would bring her clothes and groceries. The meetings between them were emotional and lasted only a few minutes. Sometimes they wouldn’t meet for a while, and the image of Mariana’s face would depart from his eyes.

Hugo curls up in his dark corner, wrapped in one of the sheepskins, and the tears that were blocked in his eyes burst out and flood his face. “Mama, where are you? Where are you?” He whimpers like an abandoned animal.

He cries himself to sleep. In his sleep he is at home. Rather, in his room. Everything is in its place. Suddenly, Anna appears and stands in the doorway. She has grown taller, and she is wearing a traditional Ukrainian dress. The dress suits her.

“Anna,” he calls out.

“What?” she answers in Ukrainian.

“Have you forgotten how to speak German?” He is alarmed. “I haven’t forgotten, but I’m trying very hard not to speak German.”

“Papa says that you don’t forget a mother tongue.”

“I assume that’s correct, but in my case, the effort was so powerful that it drove the German words from my mouth.” She speaks in a torrent of Ukrainian.

“Strange.”

“Why?”

“Strange to talk with you in Ukrainian.”

Anna smiles the restrained smile he knows well: a mixture of shyness and arrogance.

“Is it also hard for you to speak French?”

She smiles again and says, “In the mountains people don’t speak French.”

“When you come back, after the war, we’ll speak German again, right?”

“I assume so.” She speaks like an adult.

Only now does he see how much she has changed. She has grown taller, and her body is full. She looks more like a young peasant girl than the Anna he knew. True, some features still remain, but they, too, have filled out and grown wider.

“Anna,” he says.

“What?”

“Until the end of the war, you won’t come back to us?” he asks, and is surprised by the question.

“My spirit is here all the time, but my body, for now, must be in the mountains. And you?”

“I just got to Mariana’s now.”

“To Mariana’s?”

“My impression is that she is a good woman.”

“I hope you’re not wrong.”

“Mama also told me that she was a good woman.”

“Be careful, in any event.”

“Of what?”

“Of those women,” she says, and disappears.